by Nick Lake
Almost of its own accord – almost as if it was cursed, or he was – his sword flew forward and slashed the samurai’s throat.
He gathered himself. A little in front of him were Hana and Yukiko – he knew because their blood ran colder than the men’s; that and they didn’t smell so much of sweat. He could sense which one was Hana, too, because her blood was strong and pure. Yukiko’s, though, was not.
Yukiko was sick.
Shusaku wondered how long she had been wasting away. He had known people like that before, had smelled their blood. They were eaten away from inside, their own sins and their own guilt feeding on their souls. It hadn’t happened to him – maybe because he didn’t, deep down, feel guilty enough.
But it was happening to Yukiko. Her guilt had taken hold of her, and it was killing her. Akuji mi ni tomaru, thought Shusaku. All evil done clings to the body. It was one of the precepts of the Tendai monks, including his friend the abbot. They maintained that the fruits of evil actions clung to people like plums to a tree, weighing them down. Shusaku had never told the abbot about the dead he saw at the start of battles, but he thought the abbot would not be surprised.
Then, as he was sensing the movements of the girls, he noticed it.
Yukiko’s sick, but there’s more to it than that. She isn’t fighting.
Hana was much weaker, it was obvious. Her movements, while quick, were uninspired. She was not a person loved by the blade. But Yukiko was dangerous. And yet, as Shusaku sensed the moving bodies, it seemed she neglected several opportunities to kill Hana.
Shusaku raced forward, seeing a way out of this mess. She’s been ordered to leave Hana alive, he thought. That means Lord Oda doesn’t want her dead. . .
He was past Hana in a flash, and with nothing more than a twitch of his sword he dealt with Yukiko’s guard, sending her sword spinning away over the grass. He pressed his own blade against her neck, feeling her pulse as it thrummed weakly through the steel.
It was not in his nature to do so, but he hesitated. Few of the ghosts that had attached themselves to him were female – and he wasn’t sure he wanted to add to their number.
‘Please,’ said Yukiko, trembling, and he was afraid that she might beg, sapping the last of his resolve, but then she seemed to push towards the blade, not away from it. ‘Please, end me,’ she said.
Shusaku heard Hana gasp. To Yukiko, though, he nodded gravely. ‘You are suffering?’ he asked.
A tear rolled down her cheek – he could smell its salt tang against her skin. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The ghosts. . . they surround me. I feel them feeding. Not my sister, she only watches, in sadness. But the ones I have killed.’
‘I understand,’ said Shusaku.
‘You cannot,’ she replied.
‘Yes,’ he said gently. ‘Yes, I can. And that is why I cannot kill you. Don’t you see?’
The tears ran down her cheeks.
‘Go, girl,’ he said. ‘I can’t help you.’
Her eyes narrowed, and she spat at his feet. ‘Next time I see you, I’ll kill you,’ she said, and then she ran from the clearing.
Shusaku shrugged. He turned and saw that Hana was beside him – she looked grateful to him for intervening, for saving her from Yukiko. She would not be so grateful in a moment.
Spinning on his foot, he threw his sword up to stop, trembling, just below Hana’s throat. He couldn’t see the expression on her face, but he sensed her pulse quicken with fear.
‘Trust me,’ he whispered, and he hoped that was enough.
Then he reached back with his other hand, pulled his bag over to hang on his chest, and pulled out the golden ball, the one that wasn’t real. He held it up as his blade rested against the throat of Lady Oda no Hana, the daughter of the second most powerful daimyo in the land. Then he called out, because he could hear Lord Oda talking menacingly to Taro as they fought.
‘Drop your sword, Nobunaga,’ he said.
CHAPTER 71
LOWERING HIS SWORD, Taro edged towards his mentor and his love. Hana was shaking, her eyes wide with surprise, as Shusaku held her tight, the blade against her throat. Hiro had just wrestled one of the samurai to the ground, and as silence settled on the clearing like ash, he slowly got to his feet. He sent to Taro one of those looks that only people who have been friends for many years can use – this one said, Are you hurt?
Taro shook his head. No.
Lord Oda stood like a rabbit hearing the pad of a wolf.
‘Remove that sword from my daughter’s throat,’ he said to Shusaku, trying to inject his voice with authority, but managing only shrillness. ‘My samurai are practically infinite. This cannot end well for you.’ He gestured to the forest. Ranks upon ranks of armed men stood under the trees, like a ghost army in the mist. They wore full armour and held swords in their hands. There were hundreds of them.
‘That depends,’ said Shusaku.
‘On what?’
‘On whether you let us go.’
Lord Oda laughed, a harsh, barking sound. ‘Why would I do that?’
Shusaku hummed noncommittally to himself, as if considering his options. ‘If you do,’ he said finally, weighing the fake ball in his hand, ‘I will give you this.’ He turned his head a fraction towards Taro, and Taro understood what was wanted of him.
‘No!’ he said. ‘Not the ball!’
Lord Oda smiled at him. ‘Ah, how we are betrayed by our teachers,’ he said. He turned again to Shusaku. ‘You will give me the ball? Just like that?’
‘Not just like that. In return for you allowing us to climb up to the Hongan-ji.’
Lord Oda ran his fingers through his beard. ‘Why shouldn’t I just kill you, and take the ball?’ he said.
‘If you let us go,’ said Shusaku, his tone taking on a new, implacable hardness, ‘I will allow your daughter to live. If you don’t, she dies.’ He pressed his blade to her, and blood beaded on the shining steel.
This time Taro shouted out ‘No!’ without feigning of any kind. He knew Shusaku – he knew the ninja was strong and ruthless and capable of great sacrifice in the name of the greater good. Shusaku had decided that Taro’s life was worth giving anything to save, and so Taro feared that he might kill Hana, if it came to it.
Taro rushed forward, his thoughts swirling opaquely, not sure how this stand-off could possibly be resolved, but wanting to get Hana away from Shusaku, who would open her throat if he had to. But Shusaku only increased his pressure, and Taro was forced to stop – there was nothing he could do to save Hana. It would take Shusaku less than a heartbeat – less than a step over the grass from Taro – to kill her.
‘It would appear,’ said Lord Oda, ‘that you would be making two deadly enemies if you killed her. The boy is in love, I see.’ He said this in the same contemptuous way that he might say, The boy is a coward, or, The boy entertains intimate relations with cattle.
Shusaku shrugged. ‘If he kills me, he kills me. But he will be shogun.’
Lord Oda still hadn’t moved, and his sword lay on the ground beside him. He lowered his shoulders, resigned. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Give me the ball.’
‘No,’ said Shusaku. ‘First you send your men away. Then I give you the ball. Only when you have returned to your camp will I take my blade from her throat.’ He jerked his head towards Hiro. ‘And give that boy your sword, so you’re not tempted to do something stupid.’
Lord Oda didn’t hesitate for long – Shusaku could tell that he was in no position to negotiate. ‘Agreed,’ he said. Then he turned to his samurai and ordered them back. Quickly they melted away, downward, into the trees that covered the slope leading to the encampment. Then he picked up his sword and walked slowly in Hiro’s direction, before, on Shusaku’s instruction, throwing the sword to Taro’s friend, grip first.
Shusaku beckoned Taro and Hiro forward. Keeping his sword on Hana, he rolled the ball towards Lord Oda, who seized it triumphantly, grinning widely as he turned it in his hands, the Sanskrit engravings flashing
in the moonlight. ‘It’s mine!’ he said. ‘Mine!’ He turned and walked quickly back towards his camp, as if forgetting all about his enemies, or as if someone might take his prize from him if he wasn’t careful. He held it in his arms like a baby.
Only when he reached the treeline did he turn. ‘You realize,’ he said, ‘that when you arrive on top of that mountain, you will be surrounded? We have held this siege for months. And now that I have the ball, the Ikko-ikki will be powerless to resist me.’ He held up the ball, a ghastly expression of delight on his face, then pointed to Taro. ‘Next time you see me,’ he said, ‘I’ll be coming at you with an army of thousands. I give you till dawn, before I launch the attack.’
‘Good,’ said Taro. ‘We look forward to it.’
And then, cackling and murmuring to himself, or to the ball, it was difficult to tell, Lord Oda disappeared. Taro was almost shocked at how quickly he turned his back on his daughter when he had the instrument of power in his hands – but then he had encountered Lord Oda before, and knew his capabilities. The man was obsessed with power and with winning – the cost in human lives was not important. In a way, his drive was almost admirable, almost monk-like, in its abandonment of earthly ties – though the impulse that underlaid his actions was evil.
The ball is like a curse that has got hold of him, thought Taro. The idea of being shogun, too. He could almost feel sorry for the daimyo, as he pictured the expression on the man’s face when he got back to his tent, jealously guarding the ball all the while, to discover that it didn’t work.
Almost, but not quite.
‘You two go first,’ said Shusaku to Taro and Hiro, gesturing upward. ‘I’ll follow with Hana, once it’s safe.’
Taro put his hands on the rock and began to pull himself up. Craning his head back, he could see the walls of the Hongan-ji, far above, and the guns that bristled on its ramparts. He half expected a shot from below, or an arrow, but none came.
On a ledge, he rested until Shusaku and Hana caught up. The colour was returning to Hana’s cheeks, though a thin cut on her neck was trickling blood. Taro was disturbed, but not surprised, to note that it stirred in him a mixture of pity and hunger. But the hunger he could deal with. He was used to it. And anyway, soon they’d be fighting Lord Oda’s army, and he would have all the blood he could desire, flying around him, leaping from wounds, as if it wanted nothing more than to abandon the enemy samurai’s bodies and become part of him instead.
He was almost looking forward to the attack, to the battle.
Almost, but not quite.
Lord Oda would attack before dawn, with his thousands of gunners, ranked in threes to keep the bullets coming. But if everything went according to plan, then Taro would have not only the warrior monks of the Ikko-ikki on his side, with their superior weapons, but also the true ball, and with it the control of the rain. Lord Oda would find himself on the steep slopes of a mountain, leading an army effectively disarmed by the weather.
It could be a bloodbath, thought Taro, feeling a queasy mixture of sickness and excitement. But sometimes a bloodbath is necessary.
CHAPTER 72
THE SUN’S GLOW was just creeping over the fields from the east, setting alight the helmets, armour, and weapons of Lord Oda’s army. The sea of samurai was no longer facing Mount Hiei, but was gathered at the foot of the mountain on which Taro sat, a great tsunami wave about to break itself on the rocks.
Taro dangled his legs over the side, looking down at the vast ranks of Oda’s men and Tokugawa’s men, at the barrels of their thousands of guns, which from this height were visible as little pine needles in the hands of dolls. He took a deep breath. The Ikko-ikki had better guns, it was true, of the improved flintlock variety, but they were not as numerous as the Tendai monks. Perhaps two hundred of the Pure Land sect waited with Taro, along the crenellations and at the foot of the wall. As he watched, some of them looked to him – a couple murmuring words that might have been prayers, and others with black looks in their eyes.
They blame me for Oda’s coming, he thought. They thought they could weather a siege, but they are not sure about a direct attack. I can see why. He was looking at those tens of thousands of samurai and thinking this was madness, and he was seeing his thoughts reflected in the faces of those Ikko-ikki beside and below him. But if he didn’t believe he could turn the battle with the Buddha ball’s help, then why should the Ikko-ikki? Faith. He had to have faith. He patted the bulge in his black ninja’s trousers where the ball was, and he hoped.
The Ikko-ikki might be outnumbered, but they had something else on their side. They had knowledge, and they had preparation.
Taro and his friends had not slept at all. Shusaku had introduced Taro, Hiro, and Hana to Jun. The boy seemed nice – kind and helpful, in a slightly simple way. Taro could see why Shusaku had chosen him to be his eyes.
Right now, Jun was sitting on the parapet next to him, with Hiro between them.
‘What is that you’re reading?’ said Jun.
Taro looked down at the scroll in his hand. ‘It’s a story,’ he said. ‘Someone gave it to me. They said it would help me with my swordplay.’
‘I don’t see how a story could help with that,’ said Jun.
‘No,’ said Taro. ‘No, nor do I.’
He glanced again at the massing army – it had been organizing itself for what seemed like ages now, the ranks forming and then re-forming, the horses going to one side, then the other. It was interminable, and it was frustrating. Taro wasn’t anxious to die, but he hated waiting. If this was going to be his last battle, he wanted to get on with it.
Trying to distract himself, he looked down at the scroll again, and for the dozenth time he read the abbot’s story.
In the dark ages, in the cold ages, there was a ravine – and in that ravine was the most ancient kiri tree in Japan, a crooked-branched king in a kingdom of rock and wood. Its upper leaves were one with the sky, trembling with the joy of their privilege as they conversed, at night, with the stars. Its roots plunged deep into the earth, around hard rocks, becoming confused in the blackness of the earth with the scales of the dragon that slept underneath.
One day a powerful wizard cut a branch from the tree – which would have resisted such an attempt by anyone less powerful than he – and made from it a remarkable harp, of which it was said that it shone in the day like the sun and glowed in the night like the moon. For many years, this harp was the most treasured possession of the emperor, but in vain did his musicians try to play it – no one could draw a melody from its strings. And if ever someone tried, all that would come from the harp were harsh, discordant noises, as if the instrument hated and disdained its player.
At last, the prince of musicians, Peiwoh, came to the imperial court. On being presented with the harp, he stroked it gently, as if taming a wolf, and drew from it a wondrous sound. He sang of nature and the seasons, of mountains and the sea, of soft-glowing stars and the soft earth. And as he sang, the memories of the tree from which the harp was made were awoken, and the people of the court were stunned to find themselves surrounded by the scents of spring, by the murmuring of a summer breeze, by the chirring of insects, the pattering of rain, the call of the cuckoo. Then Peiwoh switched key, and the room echoed with the sharp, clean sound of falling snow, the ringing stillness of ice, the beat of a swan’s wings, and the rhythm of falling hail.
Peiwoh sang of love, causing the air in the room to grow sweet with expectation. Clouds scudded across the ceiling, white and beautiful against a summer sky – but trailing black shadows of despair across the floor. He sang of war, and everywhere resounded the clash of iron and the screams of dying men. The dragon that slept under the tree flashed, quick and lithe, in the corners of the ceiling.
Enraptured, the emperor asked Peiwoh his secret.
Peiwoh said, ‘The others failed, Emperor, because they asked the harp to accompany them as they sang of themselves. I have let the harp choose its own songs, and I did not know as I p
layed whether I was the harp, or the harp was me.’
Taro cursed, and threw the scroll off the parapet, to bounce on the grass below. He was starting to think that the abbot was having a joke at his expense.
‘Nothing?’ said Jun, with a smile.
‘Nothing,’ said Taro.
‘Well,’ said Jun, ‘at least you have the Buddha ball. That’s better than any sword.’
‘I hope so,’ said Taro. And he did hope.
He looked down at the army again, to see if it had changed since he last looked. If anything, it seemed to have swelled, and then he saw why – Lord Tokugawa’s flag was flying over a second enormous army, this one ranged on the other side of the stream that ran down the mountain, flinging itself over rocks in glittering waterfalls, before crashing into the plain as a meandering silver river, all its energy expended.
Oh, no, he thought. The message didn’t make it.
In all the excitement, he had forgotten that two armies were laying siege to the Hongan-ji, not one. Lord Tokugawa was still Lord Oda’s ostensible ally, and now that Lord Oda had determined it was time to attack, Lord Tokugawa’s generals, or Lord Tokugawa himself, must have agreed to stand by him.
Taro turned to the monks, saw the eagerness on their faces as they clutched their new and improved guns, forged in their own subterranean workshops from the Portuguese pattern smuggled in by Shusaku. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that their stand was threatened, that they faced not just the wrath of Lord Oda, but the wrath of Lord Tokugawa, too, which brought with it many more thousands of heavily armed men.
Below, a bugle sounded, and the army began to stream up the slope. Taro bit his lip, and the blood that flooded his mouth was delicious. His heart pounded in his chest as he watched death coming up the mountain towards him. But then he turned to his left and saw Hiro, a gun in his hands, and Hana to his right, also standing bravely in the face of the onslaught. He smiled. He was lucky, really. It was just a shame Shusaku wouldn’t see the battle, hiding as he was below, so as not to be burned by the sunlight.